Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
trips

the one where they forgot the luggage

We went to River Forest Lodge again for vacation this year. We arrived mid-afternoon and got settled in. Afterwards, I was looking for something that was packed in my luggage and couldn’t find our luggage. As it turns out, we didn’t bring it. Our two bags were sitting in the hall because, as we were getting ready in the morning, we were still packing things in them. No one brought them out to the living room with the other stuff and they got left behind. It went unnoticed because, there was SO MUCH stuff to pack (particularly since we took an extra person, one of Jake’s friends). Luckily, we weren’t so far away that we couldn’t return home to get it. Brian sacrificed his first evening of vacation to drive back home and get our luggage. He’s a keeper. I’m betting we won’t leave our luggage behind again in the future.

That said, with the exception of a group of bikers stopping by to check out the campsite (which I found rather annoying), it was all smooth sailing from that point on. Well, it did rain a lot and was on the cool side, but the guys were able to do a lot of fishing and I was able to do a lot of knitting and reading (though not in the preferred spot of my hammock). We had a wonderful time and the week went by so fast. I did not want to return home.

We took Buster and Alice this year. That experiment was received with mixed reviews. Buster was barkier than I hoped–he didn’t much like it when people would come and go, though his attitude did improve a bit by the end of the week. Alice did not quite have the revival that she usually does, but the old girl is 14…

Besides hanging around the cabin, we did do a couple of other things. We were in town from Saturday-Friday, so we were able to check out the Tionesta Market Village this year (it’s only open on weekends). We also made a trip to the Reiland Farm and Shoppe to check out the animals (and buy yarn!). We stopped in to see one of our clients at the Forest County Visitors Center and took a walk through the fish hatchery while in town. Brian took a 9 mile canoe/fishing trip from Tidioute to our campsite; we also did a short walk on a river trail in Tidioute. Finally, we stopped to check out the Hall Barn while driving around one day.

All in all another excellent and memorable vacation. I’m already planning for next year.

books

child of god

Another great read from Cormac McCarthy. I think he just ended up on my favorite authors list. I read that they made a movie from this book (I saw the trailer–it was excellent!), so I had to read it before the movie came out. It was really more of a short story than a novel (not sure how long it was because I bought it for my Kindle, but it only took a couple of hours to read). If you are so inclined, you can read about the plot here.

My rating: 4/5

miscellany

flying time

Where has the summer gone? I can’t believe it’s going to be August in a week. This has been a busy summer so far–lots of stuff going on, but never enough time to do the things I really want to do (gardening, riding motorcycles). We have hardly ridden our bikes at all this summer–we need to resolve to get out every weekend possible in August and September otherwise I’m going to start to wonder why we own these bikes. I feel like I haven’t spent a lot of time gardening, too (though it feels like I’ve spent a lot of time weeding). Let’s hope August is more productive.

books

the stonemason

Another great one from Cormac McCarthy. Apparently, this guy only writes great stuff. This particular book happened to be a screenplay. I could totally picture it being done as a play, but I guess that’s the idea.

My rating: 4/5

do-it-yourself

check

After Brian completed our new kitchen ceiling, I determined that the kitchen could use a coat of paint. I don’t normally like to schedule home improvement projects for myself over the summer, but this one couldn’t wait because Brian still needs to put up the trim around the ceiling (which will also be painted). I decided to go with a different color this time around. Previously the walls were gray, now they are tan (which is very complementary to the cabinets and the ceiling). I thought about doing a bolder color, but was not able to come up with anything that I liked and that also went with the cabinets, ceiling, floor and countertops. It took quite a bit of time to paint–there’s so much stuff to go around. The last time the kitchen was painted was when we remodeled it (14 years ago!) and we did the painting before the cabinets went up so it was much easier that time. It was a long afternoon, but at least the job is done.